With two victories in the last three races, including Sunday'scrash-filled UAW-GM Quality 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway,Mark Martin has seized momentum from points leader Jeff Gordonin their duel for the Winston Cup championship. But Martin fearshis late surge will come to a screeching halt in the next tworaces, the Winston 500 at Talladega this Sunday and the Pepsi400 at Daytona on Oct. 17. Talladega and Daytona are the twolongest tracks on the circuit and the only ones at which NASCARrequires carburetor restrictor plates to hold speeds below 200mph.

Martin and his team owner, Jack Roush, know that their Tauruswill be at a disadvantage against Gordon's Monte Carlo on thetwo superspeedways because Roush's restrictor-plate enginedevelopment isn't as advanced as that of Gordon's HendrickMotorsports team. "We don't have much of a chance at Talladegaand Daytona," Roush said Sunday, after Martin had cut Gordon'spoints lead by 25, down to 174, with six races remaining. "I'mafraid this is going to throw ice water on our championshiphopes."

But the Roush-Martin team shouldn't give up yet. Theengine-stifling restrictor plates often force drivers to run inhuge packs because they have difficulty accelerating away fromone another. That causes crapshoots that can leave the hareswrecked and the tortoises with the spoils.

Martin finished 38th in the Daytona 500 last February and 23rd inthe DieHard 500 at Talladega last April. Though Gordon finished16th and fifth, respectively, in those races, he dominated atDaytona before hitting some debris and damaging his front air damjust past the halfway point.

Says Martin, "We did test at Daytona before the July race [thePepsi 400, which was postponed until October because of ragingsummer wildfires in Florida], and we made significant progresswith our car. But since then we're not sure we've made anyprogress. We should be in better shape than we were, but we'recertainly not where we want to be."

IRL Odd CoupleBRACK, FOYT ON VERGE OF TITLE

Swedish driver Kenny Brack and Texan-to-a-T car owner A.J. Foytare one of the oddest winning combinations in auto racing. TheIRL began in 1996, with Foyt as a founding member, partly togive American dirt-track drivers opportunities on big-leagueovals. Foyt was the leading proponent of that notion. Brack, whoneed only finish seventh or better in Saturday's Las Vegas 500Kto win this year's IRL championship, has a road-racingbackground, in the European Formula 3000 series, and thus is anexample of the imported drivers who, the IRL charged, had becometoo dominant on its rival circuit, CART.

Furthermore, to make room for Brack, Foyt last year fired justthe sort of driver the IRL supposedly wanted to help: Idahonative Davey Hamilton, a short-track, supermodified veteran,who's now second to Brack in IRL points, 312-281, as the driverfor Nienhouse Motorsports. But in the World According to A.J.,there was no contradiction in his hiring of Brack. "The firstthing Kenny had to do before we signed a contract was move toTexas," Foyt says. "He lives in Houston [Foyt's hometown] now.After he got settled, he was a transplant."

Foyt still won't hesitate to blast CART for the U.N. look of itsdriver standings. Other than Americans such as Michael Andretti,Bryan Herta, Al Unser Jr. and Jimmy Vasser, "the other guys inCART, hell, I can't even pronounce their names, much less spellthem," Foyt says. As for Brack, after he took the checkered flagfor an IRL-record third straight win, in Atlanta on Aug. 29,Foyt summed up the league's attitude adjustment by bellowinginto Brack's helmet radio, "We love you, you foreigner!"

Lee, one of NASCAR's pioneer drivers, won 54 races and threechampionships. Richard was dubbed King for winning 200 races andseven championships, both records, before retiring in 1992. Butthe free-spirited Kyle has won only eight races in a 19-yearNASCAR career that began when he was 18. "Adam has more desirethan Kyle ever had," says Richard. "When Kyle came along, hewanted to drive a race car, but he also wanted to ride hismotorcycles, play his guitars, get married the first thing--allsorts of stuff. Adam is really, really focused."

Adam also is dealing with a racing tragedy similar to one thathaunts his grandfather. His crew chief, Chris Bradley, wascrushed underneath Adam's car during a pit stop in an AmericanSpeed Association (ASA) race last month outside St. Paul. Bradleydied of internal injuries while undergoing surgery.

"Chris didn't tell Adam or anyone else in the crew that he wasgoing under the car to make an adjustment," says Richard. "Theroutine is, when the new tires are on, the jackman lets the cardown. It's Adam's job to take off when the car comes off thejack. That's what he did. He didn't have any idea anybody wasunder the car. He thought he'd run over a tire or an air wrench,until they stopped the race."

"I've been torn up for the past several weeks," Adam said afterhis victory in Charlotte. "When I got home [to the Petty compoundnear Randleman, N.C.] from Minnesota, I was devastated. The firstperson to meet me was my grandfather, telling me he'd gonethrough the same thing many years before."

In 1965, when Richard was participating in a Chrysler boycott ofNASCAR in a dispute over engine specifications, he competedbriefly in drag racing. At a strip in Dallas, Ga., his dragsterwent out of control and into the crowd, killing aneight-year-old boy.

"Just before Chris died," says Adam, "an ASA chaplain told me,'This will either make you or break you.' I think it has made me.When I went to Minnesota, I was still halfway a boy, but I had togrow up that day."

Adam, who began racing in go-karts at six and had one stock carvictory before the win at Charlotte, plans to drive in thisSaturday's ARCA race at Talladega and in three Busch GrandNational races later this season. Next year he'll move towardfull-time Busch-series racing to prepare for the elite WinstonCup series that made his family famous.

Recently at Richard's house, says Kyle, "Daddy and Adam werewalking together in the backyard, talking. As I looked out thewindow at them, I told my mother, 'Richard Petty's finally gotthe son he never had.'"

For the latest news from all the motor sports circuits, plusmore from Ed Hinton, go to www.cnnsi.com.

6Number of CART races, of 17 run this season, that Team KoolGreen driver Paul Tracy has not finished because of crashes.Tracy, known as Captain Crunch, was fired from Team Penske lastyear after wrecking five cars. On Sunday he was running secondat Houston when he crashed trying to pass teammate and eventualwinner Dario Franchitti. Tracy and team owner Barry Green gotinto a shoving match over the incident.

Before he became the premier postseason performer of his generation, the Patriots icon was a middling college quarterback who invited skepticism, even scorn, from fans and his coaches. That was all—and that was everything